Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman: badger cull is 'modern form of abuse'

The badger cull is a modern form of abuse says Huddersfield MP Barry Sheerman

Share

Get daily updates directly to your inbox

Thank you for subscribing!

Could not subscribe, try again laterInvalid Email

Badgers have been treated appallingly by humans for hundreds of years and so should not be culled, an MP has said.

Labour's Barry Sheerman, MP for Huddersfield, said he recognised the "calamity" and "tragedy" of bovine tuberculosis but insisted vaccination of badgers and cattle was the best option.

Mr Sheerman said humans had used badgers for baiting and bloodsports for hundreds of years and that culling them was a modern form of such abuses.

He told the Commons: "I'm chair of the John Clare Trust and if anybody wants to see the finest poem about badgers ever written by any human being, look up John Clare's poem The Badger.

"I don't know how if it was then when I read that poem that I did just understand for hundreds of years human beings have treated badgers appallingly.

"Using them for baiting, using them for pleasure, and I don't want to be associated with that in a modern form of culling them.

"They are a form of animal life that we should respect and love and I do in the way that I love and respect the fox and cattle."

But Mr Sheerman acknowledged that bovine TB had to be eradicated as there were cases of farmers committing suicide when their cattle herd became infected.

He said: "This debate should be conducted in harmony and cross-party because I have always believed, and I for 10 years chaired a select committee and my watchword was always where you can get it evidence based policy is what we should be guided by.

"I've read as much as I can from the House of Commons library and every document I've found since this has gone one.

"I have come to the conclusion that the evidence shows that this is a calamity.

"Bovine TB is a calamity.

"I have many farming friends who are desperate because friends of theirs have had it, it drives farmers to desperation and in some cases to suicide when they get bovine TB and they lose a cherished herd that they bred.

"My heart goes out to the farming community when this is something that they don't understand why it can't be grappled with by Defra, by the Government and get it sorted."

He went on: "I can't see any way forward apart from vaccination.

"I really believe that we have got to vaccinate both cows and badgers in order to sort this out.

Want to read, watch and hear more? You can download the FREE Examiner Apple App here , the FREE Examiner Android App here or you can view the paper as an e-edition on your Apple, Android or Kindle device by clicking here